By Gina Horan
Wildwood Gets New Parking Garage and Sets Sights For the Future
The City of Wildwood held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new downtown parking garage Friday morning with around 150 people in-attendance. The four-level structure houses 126 spaces, including four served by two EV charging stations.
The garage is owned by the City of Wildwood and offers free parking to support the downtown masterplan and municipal district as well as compliment the neighboring Villages population through positive economic development.
Contrary to recent rumors, the structure was not a solo project for the city but rather a public/private partnership with G3 Development, a private firm based in Mount Dora. G3 approached the city three years ago, with hopes of supporting development throughout the historic district.
City Manager Jason McHugh says there has been a shortage of parking in this area for some time.
“Wildwood has a multitude of small, independent businesses on Main Street, including retail and service-based companies, all of which will benefit immediately from the additional parking for their customers,” Jason says.
Backing up his claim is Roxanne Stafford, the owner of Window Reflections which is right next door to the garage. She has been eagerly anticipating the structure’s opening after seeing her customers frustration at the lack of spaces.
“Actually, I heard about it over a year ago so we went to a lot of meetings,” she says. “Parking has been a struggle for many of my customers, some of whom are seniors, so this helps tremendously.”
Representative Daniel Webster was also on-hand to lend his support and gave Mayor Ed Wolf and the planning commission credit for having a forward-thinking perspective, despite some pushback.
“It was a hard decision,” the congressman says, “but it was the right one because it will help support future growth that is already planned and help revitalize the downtown.”
Mayor Wolf made a bit of a splash as he drove his big, white truck into the lower level of the garage and says he hopes that with the addition of the “Railyard” will show constituents it was worth it.
“We have a vision of what we want the downtown to be and the Railyard is just part of the plan that will include green space, gathering in social areas and pedestrian activity for the citizens and visitors to Wildwood.”
The next phase of the public-private partnership and will feature 8,000 square feet of commercial space for indoor/outdoor dining and entertainment. Construction is expected to begin in early 2025. Design of the state’s Complete Streets Study for Main Street/US 301 is included in the Florida Department of Transportation’s Five-Year Work Program.
Additional information about Wildwood’s Downtown Master Plan, the parking garage, and The Railyard project is available at wildwooddowntown.com.
Gina moved to central Florida in August of 2021 from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and spent 10 years as a fashion editor, columnist and food writer for The Knight Ridder Newspaper group. She was also a photo stylist and covered concerts, fashion shows and festivals all over Northern California. In 2000, she joined KSAN radio as a morning show co-host and produced the news and sports content there for 4 years. She also covered travel, events and the restaurant scene for KRON-Bay TV. She is a veteran bartender and has worked in hospitality on and off since high school. Her passions include travel, road trips, history books, baseball, tasting menus and most of all, landing in a new city with no map or guidebook. Gina lives in Oxford with her mom, cats and baby hamster.
